6.18.2009

US Supreme Court gets it Wrong: No Right to DNA tests after conviction -Videos

update July 29, 2009 Cops frame girl
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I'm confused - my first exposure to DNA testing was a few years ago while listening to C-SPAN radio near Washington, D.C. with my friend Thom heading to work . We tuned in just as testimony was beginning of a man who had been imprisoned for almost his entire life. The speaker who had recently been exonerated for a crime he'd never commited was not bitter, angry or looking for revenge. He was simply thankful to get out of prison so he could enjoy what few years of his life remained. Many years have passed so I don't have particulars of that exact case - but I remember Thom and I were dumbfounded and shocked that our legal system was capable of such injustice. Fast forward to today - it's fixed right? NO - in fact we just took a step in the wrong direction.

I came across THIS STORY today regarding a recent decision by the Supreme Court ruling that:

"The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday ruled that a defendant does not have the constitutional right to demand DNA tests to prove his innocence after his case has already been tried.

In a split decision of five to four in a country which still carries out the death penalty, the nation's highest court said a federal Alaska tribunal was wrong to allow a man jailed for rape to have retroactive DNA tests.

"DNA testing has an unparalleled ability both to exonerate the wrongly convicted and to identify the guilty," the court wrote in its opinion of the case of William Osborne, serving 26 years in prison for the 1994 rape.

At the same time, DNA testing alone does not always resolve a case. Where there is enough other incriminating evidence and an explanation for the DNA result, science alone cannot prove a prisoner innocent, it added."

Have we learned nothing? Why NOT allow testing? Cui bono? It seems to me that the DNA testing, in the case of a guilty person, would help remove any lingering doubt as to innocence, while in the case of a wrongly convicted person the DNA testing would be a valuable check on our legal system to do what we are supposed to aim for - protect the innocent. Instead we have a ruling from the Supreme Court that defies common sense by taking away one of our best scientific tools for finding the truth.

Take a look HERE where you can read about Curtis McCarty who was exonerated based on DNA evidence:

"OKLAHOMA CITY, OK; May 11, 2007) – Curtis Edward McCarty, who was convicted twice and sentenced to death for the same murder in verdicts that were both thrown out based on evidence of his innocence and an extraordinary pattern of government misconduct, was released from prison this morning after a judge dismissed the indictment against him that would have led to a third trial. The prosecution said today that it will not appeal the decision – finally clearing McCarty after 21 years of wrongful incarceration, more than 16 of them on death row."

Am I correct in my understanding that this recent ruling could have prevented justice in the McCarty case? Is the goal really justice? Consider this logic from article:

"Robert H. Macy, who was the Oklahoma County District Attorney for 21 years, prosecuted McCarty in both of his trials. Macy sent 73 people to death row – more than any other prosecutor in the nation – and 20 of them have been executed. Macy has said publicly that he believes executing an innocent person is a sacrifice worth making in order to keep the death penalty in the United States. "

Am I naive in my old-fashioned way of thinking that our justice system is based on the protection of the innocent - that it is better to let the guilty free than to punish an innocent person? What happened? Why do I continue with this belief while events demonstrate over and over again that convictions regardless of guilt are more important to our legal practitioners than protecting the wrongly accused?


Please watch John Grisham, a fellow Charlottesvillian, continuing his heroic fight for justice:



I'm not a lawyer - but do I have to be a lawyer to know this ruling is simply crazy?


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7 comments:

  1. I put this on Reddit and it was voted down within nine minutes. I guess a Pulitzer is not in the works for this herbivore.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am NOT going to sign any Petition to fix the broken criminal system.

    1- What Petitions do is beg for Rights that are already ours at birth. Rights Given to us by God.

    2- The Legal System is NOT broken - it was set up DELIBERATELY that way to work against the Common Man.

    3- Law is presented to us by the Elite in a foreign language- Legalese - a word has one meaning in English and another in Legalese. And ex. is "human being." In Legalese, it means "monster." That's what the Law comtemptously thinks of us.

    4- The Courts of Law operate under the Maritime Law, rather than Common Law (the law of the land).

    5- Lawyers and Attorneys do NOT work for YOU, they work for the System. They know this, the lawyer knows this, the Judge knows this, but they're NOT going to tell you.

    --They're in it for the money--

    In any case, they'll win and you'll lose. ALWAYS.

    6- When a Lawyer represents you, it means you have already lost the case. Because in Legalese, you are "RE-Presented" as a "ward of the Court" -indicating that you are already under their JURISDICTION.

    7-To ever have a chance you must study the Language they operate under- when you enter a Court of Law, you are entering a Foreign Land:
    Know even the Basics- Read and take notes:

    "The Extortion System of the Ruling Elite"

    and Youtube:

    "Jordan Maxwell-Questioning the Law"

    "Cracking the Code of Commerce,Part 1- Jordan Maxwell"

    "Think Free: Bursting the Bubble of Government Deception 1/12"

    "Think Free Presents The Magnificent Deception"

    You haven't a pray in a Court of Law (maritime Law) if you don't do YOUR HOMEWORK!

    You will simply go in and proclaim reasons and innocence, and the Judge will simply sit back and listen to you WITH A LITTLE HALF SMILE, then charge you anyway, and say: NEXT CASE.

    Don't count of Lawyers or Attorneys - it is your skin - not theirs.

    DO YOUR HOMEWORK!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you commenter above - I noticed you mentioned that our rights our given to us by God.

    Although belief in a higher power is unfashionable and controversial - especially once we get into the discussion regarding who's God we are talking about -I'm willing to get myself into a little trouble here.

    Just for the sake of argument - if our rights are NOT granted by an authority higher than any on earth, from where do our rights come? Without a higher authority those rights must come from here on earth - in other words MAN. Although I don't consider myself a religious person, preferring 'Spritual' to describe my own acknowledgement of the unknowable - I wonder if without God, for lack of a better term to describe from where our rights come, we are left with our rights originating here on earth, meaning with other human beings. Now we are faced with the problem of appealing to other human beings for our rights. I wonder who those special people may be?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Don't feel too sorry for McCarty. He was also convicted of raping a 14 year old girl. Much worse, he took the police to the body of 7 year old Janelle Fowler who had been raped and beaten to death with a baseball bat. A rookie prosecutor offered him his freedom in exchange for his testimoney against his accomplice. They say the DNA and sperm in Pam Willis's murder wasn't his, but that isn't really a surprise. He admitted to police that he was there when she died, but claimed his friend did it. It was the same excuse he used in the Fowler murder. I think he likes to watch. Most exonerations are based on technicalities.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks anonymous 8:31, yes- I'm not feeling sorry for anybody - but DNA evidence cant be ignored. I have a hard time taking the word of a police officer these days with them SWAT teaming a wrong house every day, planting evidence, shooting people in the back, ramming Tasers up people's asses, tasing pregnant mothers, blowing kids dogs heads off for nothing, shooting dogs of politicians up in Maryland, shooting a 90something year old in Atlanta then planting pot on her, tasing children, beating women until there is a one-foot-pool of blood under their head in the police station - I can continue but surely you would agree it's hard to trust a police officer these days.

    ReplyDelete
  6. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f8e_1248710602
    regarding Taser up the azz-Thanks to Americas finest! What they are protecting and serving I'm still trying to understand

    ReplyDelete
  7. Police are just like everyone else. There are good ones and bad ones. Like the rest of society, the majority of good far outweighs the bad. McCarty drove around with her little body in his trunk and then hid her in a gravel pit. This is all by his own admission and proven out to be true when he produced the body. He was involved in 3 (reported) rapes and 2 murders and he was a very young man. Not to mention his sealed juvenile history. His friends say he enjoyed mowing down animals with his car for fun. I'd rather take my chances with the police department, than put my sympathies with a raping, murdering, pedophile POS.

    ReplyDelete

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